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Waldorf Methods/Sciences 2

Introduction

" ... ancient wisdom contained no contradiction between body and soul or between nature and spirit; because one knew: Spirit is in man in its archetypal form; the soul is none other than the message transmitted by spirit; the body is the image of spirit. Likewise, no contract was felt between man and surrounding nature because one bore an image of spirit in one's own body, and the same was true of every body in external nature. Hence, an inner kinship was experienced between one's own body and those in outer nature, and nature was not felt to be different from oneself. Man felt himself at one with the whole world. He could feel this because he could behold the archetype of spirit and because the cosmic expanses spoke to him. In consequence of the universe speaking to man, science simply could not exist. Just as we today cannot build a science of external nature out of what lives in our memory, ancient man could not develop one because, whether he looked into himself or outward at nature, he beheld the same image of spirit. No contrast existed between man himself and nature, and there was none between soul and body. The correspondence of soul and body was such that, in a manner of speaking, the body was only the vessel, the artistic reproduction, of the spiritual archetype, while the soul was the mediating messenger between the two. Everything as in a state of intimate union. There could be no question of comprehending anything. We grasp and comprehend what is outside our own life. Anything that we carry within ourselves is directly experienced and need not be first comprehended. ... Precisely because man had lost the connection with nature, he now sought a science of nature from outside." - Rudolf Steiner in "The Origins of Natural Science."

In Waldorf education, the science subjects do not start with nor are built from theories and formulas. Rather they start with the phenomena and develop in an experiential way, by first presenting the phenomenon, having the students make detailed observations, then guiding the students to derive the concepts that arise from the phenomena, and finally deriving the scientific formulas and laws behind the phenomena.This methodology reflects the way basic science actually has been developed by scientists and trains the pupils stepwise in basic scientific thinking and reflection on the basis of personal experience and observation of the phenomena of nature and the history of science. In kindergarten and the lower grades, the experience of nature through the seasons is brought to the children through nature walks, nature tables and observation of nature around. In later grades, there are specific main lesson blocks dealing with Man and Animal, and other themes. In grade 5, scientific ideas may be taught historically through the study of the Greeks, for example, Aristotle, Archimedes and Pythagoras. In grades 6-8 the science curriculum becomes more focused with blocks on physics (optics, acoustics, mechanics, magnetism and electricity), botany, chemistry (inorganic and organic), and anatomy. In high school, science is taught by specialists who have received college level training in biology, chemistry and physics and these three subjects are taught in each of the 4 years of high school.

Course Outlines

Waldorf Methods/Sciences 1
Lesson 1: Chemistry/Kindergarten/Grades
Lesson 2: Chemistry/Classes 9 - 12
Lesson 3: Physics/Introduction
Lesson 4: Physics/Classes 6 - 8
Lesson 5: Physics/Classes 9 - 12


Waldorf Methods/Sciences 2
Lesson 1: Life Sciences/Introduction
Lesson 2:
Life Sciences/Classes 4 - 5
Lesson 3: Life Sciences/Classes 6 -8
Lesson 4: Life Sciences/Classes 9 -10
Lesson 5: Life Sciences/Classes 11 -12


Waldorf Methods/Sciences 3
Lesson 1: Geography/Introduction
Lesson 2: Geography/Classes 1 - 8
Lesson 3: Geography/Classes 9 - 12
Lesson 4: Gardening and Sustainable Living
Lesson 5:
Technology
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Tasks and Assignments for Waldorf Methods/Sciences 2.5.

Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. Then please turn to the following tasks and assignments listed below.

1. Study the material provided and look up other resources as needed and appropriate.
2. Create examples of curriculum that addresses the learning method and content appropriate for the age group in question. Curriculum examples should include outlines and goals, activities, circle/games, stories, and illustrations/drawings:
Create 2 examples for this age group.
3. Additionally submit comments and questions, if any.

Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.

Study Material for Waldorf Methods/Sciences Lesson 2.5.

Introduction/Upper School/High School/Life Sciences

The essential question in Upper School teaching is  not how to spread the enormous range of content  in the life sciences over the timetable, but rather:  what best serves the developmental process of  adolescence? What role can the life sciences play  in helping the young person in their discovery of  themselves and their understanding of the world?  The pupils are not there for the subject, rather the  subject is there for the pupils. Adolescence engages  a deep range of hidden questions that young  people become aware of and opportunities are  needed throughout the curriculum for them to be  articulated.

One area of immediate interest to the  adolescent and one that holds the potential to  address fundamental questions about life, death  and the human condition is the study of what is  conventionally known as human biology. However, biology implies the study of organisms, so this  sets up an expectation that real knowledge about  the human being comes through a study of the  human physical body and its constituent parts and  processes, cells and genes, all of which add up to  make a person. Biology implies animals and plants,  human biology being the particular study of a  particular organism, a species of mammal whose  nature can be explained as any animal can be -  reproduction, survival etc. A higher animal, but  animal nevertheless.


Classes 9 and 10

The title 'human science' already allows the  possibility that such a study can include all human  experience from self-awareness, creative genius  and inner feelings, to bruises, sweating and  digestion. This approach can engage Classes 9 and  10, and the question of whether humans evolved  from animals can be left open for study in Classes  11 and 12.

Alongside the Classes 9 and 10 human science  main -lessons (ten to twelve weeks over the two  years in blocks of three or four weeks), other life  science studies are taught.

Class 9 need to engage in practical fieldwork with  observations and projects which have an emphasis  on the care and renewal of the land - compo sting,  planting trees, tending ponds and hedgerows, for  example. These would then become the basis for  classroom studies, which could retain their link to  the whole context of the environment from which  they arose.

In Class 10, the increased powers of thinking  are well met through laboratory-based studies of  a more conventional kind, where the control of  different variables in the growth of plants or the  relationship of water to soil, brings the forming of an hypothesis and the concept of experimental  proof into focus. By postponing the usual early  emphasis on hypothesis, measurement and proof  until Class 10, intellectual clarity can be developed  at the same time with losing a wide perspective on  the living world.

Another feature of life science study in Classes 9  and 10 is the introduction of biographies through  which scientists can appear as real human beings  with whom young people can identify. The qualities  that are needed in real scientific investigation,  rather than cardboard textbook cameos, come to  life: single-minded dedication, passion, meticulous  observation, inspiration, creative and lateral  thinking, co-operation with others, fortuitous  meetings and conversations, as well as practical  ability and clear thinking.


Class 11

In Class 11, young people's thinking powers  have matured to form the basis for a power of  judgement, which had been all too easily clouded  by the passions and extremes of adolescence or  swayed by peer group pressure.

With their thinking more in hand, they are ready  for a focus on the ideas and ideals in contemporary  science, such as cell theory and genetics (parallelled  by the atomic theory in the earth science  curriculum). By taking an historical approach,  there is a context for the theories showing how they  arose out of the previous ideas through particular  personalities and key experiments.

The study of botany provides a good basis for  this, with practical work on plant cells and use of  the microscope and with practical genetics through  the germination of seeds. Narrowing the view oflife  through the microscope needs to be balanced by a  macroscopic perspective. The study of landscape and of the major vegetation zones of the earth can  provide this, and help in translating from one realm  to the other can be given by projective geometry.  The history of science provides a context, too, in  which analytical and classificatory thinking (e.g.  Linnaeus) rose to prominence, spawning a growth  in knowledge about plants and a technology that  advanced from fertilisers to genetic engineering.  At the same time it reduced our relationship with  the biosphere to a mosaic of factors, but no real  wholeness.

The problems of the environment are the direct  result of a certain way of thinking about the living  world, which can be contrasted with Goethe's in a  study of his method and approach to plants which  emphasises exact observation, while retaining  the context of the plant in its environment and its  relationship to the whole.

The study of botany also provides the basis for  consideration of the theory of evolution in general  and Darwin's in particular, a theme to be taken up  more strongly in Class 12.


Class 12

A holistic life science curriculum needs to make  the human being central to enquiry into the  nature of life. This has been an implicit theme  throughout the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum from  the kindergarten, articulated in ways appropriate  to the age of the children.

Now, in Class 12, the issue needs to be raised  in the fullest possible way so that environmental  and ecological aspects can find their context  within fundamental questions about the nature of  the human being and the evolution of the earth.  Social, political, spiritual and moral questions lie  at the heart of an environmental education and all  the Class 12 curriculum themes are relevant.

The focus in life science for Class 12 is zoology. The  immense range of animal life is examined through  considering the architecture of the main phyla. Each  phyla establishes a new aspect ofindependence (e.g.  from the water in reptiles, from the temperature in  mammals) and consciousness (e.g. amoeba, insect  colonies, dolphins). The question of evolution and  a detailed study of Darwinism lead inevitably to  the issue of the responsibility of the human beings  for the earth and for all life, now that they possess  the commercial power to exploit it to extinction  and the technological power to manipulate it at the  genetic level.

Life Sciences/Classes 11 - 12

Class 11

Here are some examples out of the wide range of  topics that could be chosen for anyone particular  class.

* History of the microscope: from the early  Dutch lens makers (e.g. Lievenhoek) to the electron microscope. The scanning electron  microscope reveals the richness of form, even  at a magnification of 50,000. Experience in  the preparation of slides allows pupils a more  critical appreciation of the magnification,  clarity and the colour of the images and  diagrams seen in books etc.
* The plant cell: a detailed study of its main  features
    - The importance of the cytoplasm in relation to the nucleus 
   -  Mitosis and meiosis
   -  Sexual and asexual reproduction
   -  Boundaries of plant/animal (e.g. Euglena,  Chlamydomonas)
* Genetics
    - Mendel's experiments and their modern  interpretation in breeding
   -  Chromosomes, genes, DNA: the essential  features of genetic engineering
* Classification: features of some of the major  phyla: algae, fungi, lichens, ferns, mosses,  grasses, conifers, flowering plants
* Ecology
   - The role of plants in photosynthesis,  decomposition and nitrogenation within  the carbon and nitrogen cycles and in the  hydrosphere
   - Relationship to animals (e.g. seeds/herbivores/pollination)
* Plant and insect relationships: examples of  unique inter-dependent relationships
* Plant and landscape
   - The precious nature of soil structure and its  community of organisms.
   - Trees, grasses and soil erosion, on a small  and large scale
   - Diversity in forests and animal habitats
   - Monoculture and overgrazing
* Earth as biosphere: a consideration of  the whole Earth provides a balance to the  microscope and genetic details.
* Goethe's botanical studies: an historical and  practical introduction to a Goethean approach  to plant and landscape observation. Current  research along the same line.
* Agriculture and forestry: a consideration of  the degree to which cultivation of the plant  world has been distorted by other values (e.g.  consumerism) and how the distribution of  plant resources (e.g. food, timber) over the  world is subject to commercial and political  factors (e.g. the patenting of genes and  terminator technology).


Class 12

Here are some examples out of the wide range of  topics that could be chosen for anyone particular  class.

Some of the botany could be carried over from  Class 11, but the main focus for Class 12 is zoology,  with an introduction to the main phyla and their  diversity.

The opportunity should also be taken to  select detailed features which touch key issues in  biological theory and raise fundamental questions  about the relationship of human beings to the  animal world.

Some examples below:

* morifera (sponges) - the sieving of a sponge  through a nylon mesh and its ability to  regenerate as a colony with form and function
* coelenterata (hydra) - the ability of the sea slug to  ingest hydra without triggering the nematocysts,  then to use those nematocysts within their own  skins as a defensive mechanism
* mollusca - the unexpected complexity of the eye  of the squid, which anticipates the mammalian  eye well before the evolution of mammals
* arthropods - the complex structure of hives  and colonies; metamorphosis and the re-  constitution of living organisms
* Echinodermata - the embryonic development  of the starfish shows that lateral symmetry  (fundamental to the architecture of higher  animals) develops first before radial symmetry  overwhelms it
* Vertebrate development from the point of  view of an increasing independence from the  environment e.g. regulation of warmth and the  internalisation of organs such as the lungs
* Evolution, including an historical appreciation of the development of a Darwinian interpretation of evolution, the fossil record  (accounts of fakes and frauds such as the  Ichthyosaurus fake in Museum of Wales, Piltdown Man, the Brontosaurus, Archaeoraptor  Liaoningensis, might be examined alongside  reliable samples, including Charles Walcott's  discoveries in the 'Burgess Shale')
* Comparative embryological development  and the polarity of precocial and altricial  development
* Ethical questions of biological and medical  intervention in human, animal and plant life
* Conservation and human responsibility for  stewardship of the earth's biological resources  - philosophical, economic, political, social  aspects of environmental degradation. The  task of education and the urgency of changing  attitudes. The role of tourism and consumerism  on world habitats
* The overall aim of the movement curriculum  is to support the central process of integrating  the child's soul-spiritual being with the bodily organisation through the medium of  movement.
* This aspect of the curriculum assists the  development of the child's sense of movement,  spatial awareness, sense of balance and inner  equilibrium and sense of bodily well being  through fine and gross motor control. The  movement curriculum seeks to help the child  to form and differentiate her overall awareness  and control of her movement organisation and  be able to marshal its energies in the places at  the right time, thus enabling the child to direct  those forces in a meaningful way.
* The curriculum aims to assist the child to  transform the activity of the movement  organisation, thus bringing inner mobility to  thinking, feeling and willing, thus enabling  a more complete expression of individual  intention.
* The curriculum works to support the child's  developmental path in age-appropriate ways.
* The nature of the movement organisation is  such that an imagination of an action occurs  before the actual movement is physically  carried out. The relationship between the  movement organisation and imagination is  an intimate one. Thus the teaching method  requires that the children be given meaningful  and age-appropriate pictures as an impulse to  movement or activity.
* In supporting the child's developing movement  organisation, a basis is formed for social  interactions, social skills through awareness of  other people in relation to the self and thus to  real social competence.
* The movement curriculum seeks to support and  complement other aspects of the curriculum.

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